Writing in Response to Complaints

Replying to customers effectively and turning complaints into opportunities

with Jolynn Chow

It's a fact of life. Customers complain. And if it's your job to reply to customer complaints, you will know what a challenging task this is. However, a complaint gives you the opportunity to achieve service recovery, improve customer relations and build better levels of customer loyalty. So from this perspective, isn't a complaint a gift?

Quite simply, replying to customer complaints gives you a chance to put matters right. You can investigate what happened to cause the difficult situation, apologise for mistakes, explain the results of your investigations and the action taken, and take steps to repair the relationship.

But it's not so simple when you have to put it all in writing, is it?

In some situations, the customer may be unhappy about a policy that puts them at a disadvantage. Or the customer may be asking you to make an exception to a policy, which is beyond your authority. These situations need special care and specific writing skills too.

In this hands-on workshop, Jolynn will show you step-by-step how to respond to customer complaints confidently and professionally. She will show you how to use empathy, how to structure your message logically, how to choose words that convey positive emotions, and how to repair and build relationships.

So yes, receiving a complaint can be a gift - a gift that will drive you to improve service levels, improve quality, and ultimately lead to more satisfied customers.

If you want to turn complaints into opportunities, this is the workshop for you!

Receiving a Complaint

• Analysing your own common reactions to complaints
• What? Why? How? Exactly why are you writing back to the customer?
• The root of the problem - looking beyond the surface reason for responding
• Providing a solution or mending the relationship - what's the difference?

Managing the Complaint

• The nature of conflict, and how best to manage it in writing
• The 7-step approach - a fail-safe formula to handling conflict in writing
• Examples of how the 7-step approach works in various situations
• Your turn! Applying the 7-step approach to a case study

Polishing your Draft

• Adopting a modern writing style and discarding outdated theories
• Words and phrases that are easy to understand and convey positive energy
• How to add respect, friendliness, and warmth to your writing
• Keeping it positive - even in negative situations
• Adding empathy and sincerity to your apology
• Making it clear what actions to expect - from you as well as from the reader

About Jolynn Chow

Jolynn has over 25 years of operational experience in industries including banking and finance, publication and distribution, packaging products marketing, and training and education.

She specialises in areas like business communication, interpersonal skills and customer service. She has designed and delivered many training workshops for organisations like Canon Marketing, Jebsen & Jessen Group of Companies, Keppel Land, Lend Lease, Pfizer Asia Pacific, Schering-Plough, SAP Asia, Visa International, Singapore Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, HDB, and TransitLink.

Jolynn has an in-depth understanding of the language problems of bilingual users of English, as well as the common communication problems faced by business language users in Singapore and the region.